1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wearable tool holders. More particularly, the present invention relates to a tool vest.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Workers engaged in industrial plant maintenance, construction work, and the like use a variety of hand tools to perform tasks. The work commonly takes place at various heights above the ground and at times is positioned over machinery or other workers. Accordingly, working at height provides many reasons to avoid dropping tools. For instance, a dropped tool wastes time and energy of the worker who must climb down from an elevated location to retrieve the dropped tool before work can continue. Oftentimes, the dropped tool will land in a place out of the user's sight. A search undertaken to locate the tool, even if brief, further wastes valuable work time and interrupts the work flow.
Another more serious concern with dropped hand tools (i.e. hammers, screw drivers, pliers, ratchets, levels, flashlights, tape measures, etc.) is the risk of damage to equipment and death or injury to workers below the drop. Plant equipment can be damaged due to the impact of the falling tool on the machinery or parts. A tool dropped into cooling systems, liquid storage tanks, and other systems may require shutting down machinery or entire operations until the dropped tool can be retrieved.
Even though workers who use hand tools try diligently to maintain a secure grip on the tool, conditions are practically certain to arise in which tools will be dropped. To address tools dropped during use, tool lanyards and tethers have been used to secure the tool to a harness or structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,728,123 (1988, Kassal et al.) discloses a releasable strap system. The releasable strap system includes the combination of a hand strap and a device strap. The hand strap is removably connectable around the wrist of a hand and between two of the five fingers of the hand, leaving the hand free for normal use. The hand strap includes two portions, a straight wrist portion and a curved looped portion. The curved loop portion has two ends connected to the straight wrist portion at separated intervals. The straight wrist portion is wrapped around the wrist of the user, threaded through a ring, tightened, and then folded back and locked in position. The device strap is removably connected to the hand strap for supporting an item not held in the user's hand and for quick release from the hand strap.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,130,899 (1992, Larkin et al.) discloses a tool restraint apparatus. The tool restraint includes an elongate elastomeric tether line with respective first and second flexible straps mounted to each end. The first web strap is arranged for selective securement about a user's wrist and includes a first and second end that includes first and second hook-and-loop fastener patches that permit securement of the hook-and-loop fastener patches together. The second web strap is similarly constructed like the first web strap.
Tool drops also occur due to a tool being knocked loose from the worker's tool belt or pocket while climbing or moving about a structure. Workers also use tool pouches designed for certain types of tools, where the tool pouch is removably attached to a tool belt using straps that snap or hook together. Similarly, a tool pouch may be accidentally knocked loose from a tool belt and allowed to fall to the ground.
Carpenter's belts and pockets on vests or pants have been useful for storing tools between uses. Although useful, carpenter's belts and tool pouches sometimes are not configured to securely hold the tool needed for a given job. In such a situation, the worker may need to reconfigure tool pouches on the tool belt, which involves removing some tool pouches and replacing the removed pouches with different tool pouches. Nonetheless, a tool belt has limited space to hold tools and tool pouches.
To address the need to modify one's clothing and equipment for the job at hand, wearable garments with an interlock attaching strap system were developed by the United States Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center. U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,707 to Kirk et al. discloses a system for removably securing smaller objects (e.g., pouches) to a load-bearing platform, such as a vest or backpack. The system, also referred to as Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment or MOLLE, includes a mounting panel on the first object (e.g., garment), where the mounting panel includes strips of webbing evenly spaced and stitched across the mounting surface, also known as PALS webbing (pouch attachment ladder system). The PALS grid consists of horizontal rows of 1-inch Mil-W-43668 Type III nylon webbings that are spaced one inch apart and secured to the backing at 1.5 inch intervals. The spacing between the webbing rows allows webbings on a second object (e.g., a pouch) to fit therebetween. The webbings are secured with stitching perpendicular to the webbing to create channels between the webbing and the garment through which a strap may be inserted.
In an example of using the MOLLE system, a pouch has at least one attached flexible strap that extends vertically along the back of the pouch. One end of the flexible strap is secured near the pouch opening and the other end of the strap has a snap button that engages a snap post near the base of the pouch. Webbings on the garment receive the webbings on the pouch in an interlocking fashion. The strap of the pouch is passed through the webbings on the garment and then again through the webbings on the pouch in an interlocking fashion in order to effectively and removably mount the pouch to the garment. The fastener part at the lower end of the strap is then attached to a corresponding fastener part on the back surface of the pouch. Backpacks, vests, and other wearable garments employ the interlock attaching system to enable the user to position necessary pouches or other objects where they are most useful to the individual user.
A variation on the MOLLE system is a quick-mount interlocking attaching system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,080,430 to Wemmer. The Wemmer system includes a one-piece molded substrate adapter, a one-piece molded accessory adapter, and a discrete locking member. The substrate adapter has a flat base that is affixed to the object (e.g., vest). Raised regions are formed on the base at spaced-apart locations and aligned along an axis and include slots to define openings. The accessory adapter is similarly constructed with a flat base having raised regions in a spaced-apart relation along a second axis, where the raised regions also have slots that define openings. The raised regions on the accessory adapter are spaced to occupy voids between the raised regions on the substrate adapter. The locking member has a leading end and a trailing end and is removably insertable leading-end-first through the passages on the raised regions of both adapters to interlock the accessory adapter to the substrate adapter.